


dreams, ghost-shapes

by telanaris



Series: Arcana One-Shots [1]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Memory Loss, Nightmares, Trauma, nose bleed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 10:49:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14768175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telanaris/pseuds/telanaris
Summary: Always, the dream has been the same. Within it she can feel a reservoir of great magic at her disposal: she is little more than intent and starfire, her skin and flesh an afterthought. Though she has never felt this way while waking she knows it means she is at the apex of her power. She can feel the magic pushing and pulling like a roaring tide.There’s this, too: she’s searching for something, but she isn’t sure what. It’s like the feeling she gets when she wanders downstairs into the shop, looking for some ingredient or other but occupied with other thoughts, so that when she arrives she’s not sure why she came downstairs in the first place. She has forgotten.





	dreams, ghost-shapes

**Author's Note:**

> Filled prompt for Tumblr, where I write as 4biddenleeches: "the soul usually knows what to do to heal itself. the challenge is to silence the mind."  
> thanks to cedarmoons for the prompt! takes place in my ridiculously AU prequel "One Foot In the Grave" universe. (Light foreshadowing, not spoilers, for that unfinished piece below.)
> 
> Takes place right before the beginning chapters of the main game, the morning of Asra's departure from the shop.

She gasps into wakefulness, the sound as soft as snow falling upon snow, shaking free from tree branches in the shape of a phantom. 

But she is not in flamed licked halls, labyrinths of ghost-shapes and inexplicable urgency: she is in their bedroom, above the shop. It must be early. The light from the window is soft, predawn blue. 

A quick glance confirms Asra is still asleep beside her—good. No need to worry her master with these persistent terrors, though her heart still races in a panic that has lingered, pursued her into wakefulness. It is not the first time she’s been tormented by this particular nightmare, but the repetitions only make it more ominous. With every passing year the gap in her memory only seems to widen, that wealth of lost knowledge and experience like a dragon hoard too closely guarded to plunder. 

These dreams… are like the glint of gold she cannot reach, as though—impossibly—these memories do not belong to her. Are not meant for her. A secret she will always glimpse but never, ever unlock.

The star-shaped scar on her breast aches, as it always does after this dream. It drives her to sit; she leans over the edge of the bed, her bare feet resting on the worn floor as she rubs the blemish anxiously and tries to slow her breathing.

“Aredhel?”

Asra’s voice is soft, hoarser than usual from sleep; her shifting weight on the mattress must have disturbed him. When she turns to face him he is blinking sleepily and reaching for her, his palm extended as an invitation. 

Wordlessly, she takes his hand in hers, lacing their fingers. Asra’s expression turns troubled as soon as their palms meet. “Did you have the nightmare again?” he asks, but the cold and clammy flesh of her hand against his fingers’ warmth is all the confirmation he needs. 

“It’s not a big deal,“ she lies, forcing a smile. Asra already worries about her enough; though the sentiment is sweet, she finds it infuriating. And the last thing she wants is him worrying about her now. He will leave in the evening—again—on one of his mysterious journeys.

He will not tell her where he is going.  He will not invite her to join him, no matter how skilled he claims she has become in the arcane arts under his tutelage. If he fawns over her now, it will only make her more bitter when he leaves. 

_If you are so worried about me, then why do you leave?_

“You should go back to sleep,” she whispers. “It’s not yet dawn.”

But Asra’s frown only deepens, etching a fine line on his brow. He draws his free hand into his sleeve and reaches for her face, drawing the soft linen of his sleeping clothes along her upper lip. When he pulls his hand away, the cloth is stained with blood. 

Crap. She had not even noticed the nosebleed. 

So much for not worrying him, then.

“Right on time,” he says, the words carried on a sigh. She leans forward towards his grasp as he reaches for her again, clearing away the rest of the blood from her face. Almost absent-mindedly, he murmurs, “This time of year is always hard for you.”

“Is that because this is when it happened?”

She is not normally bold enough to press him. Not because he is her Master, necessarily—not for any reason of hierarchy or decorum. But after three years she has grown weary of asking questions that earn her only evasive answers and vague, unsatisfying promises. 

“The thing that happened to me—that made me forget—did it happen this time of year?”

Asra takes the space of one breath to consider his answer: in, out. Then, only a word: “yes.”

It surprises her: it’s more forthright than he usually is. She is not sure what she has done to deserve such a candid response. 

“Was it any different this time?” he prompts her, gently. “Anything new?”

 _No_. In the beginning, she had thought the dream was unfolding for her over the span of several nights, as if the truth might be unlocked if the right moon presided over her while she slept—or remembered. But now she knows it was no revelation, no  _blossoming_ , only that she had been able to recall more of the details with successive repetitions. 

Always, the dream has been the same. Within it she can feel a reservoir of great magic at her disposal: she is little more than intent and starfire, her skin and flesh an afterthought. Though she has never felt this way while waking she knows it means she is at the apex of her power. She can feel the magic pushing and pulling like a roaring tide. 

Despite this, she is panicked, pitched into a hysteria that she has rarely known while awake. She runs—through unfamiliar architecture, through hallways and galleries and hidden passageways, all windowless. And in all of these places, a hungry flame licks the walls. 

(If it is indeed a real memory of a real place, it is a wonder the building hasn’t collapsed under the fire’s gnawing.)

There’s this, too: she’s searching for something, but she isn’t sure what. It’s like the feeling she gets when she wanders downstairs into the shop, looking for some ingredient or other but occupied with other thoughts, so that when she arrives she’s not sure why she came downstairs in the first place. She has forgotten.

And so she runs, through the fiery labyrinth, deeper into the inferno, praying that when her eyes fall on the object of her search she will recognize it. But each room is only space and fire, and dim grey shapes of uncertain form. All the while every step she takes brings her closer to peril. And though she knows not what she searches for, this seems within the dream to be an acceptable gamble, for the thought of being without it (of letting this absence, whatever it may be, burn to naught but ash) sets a pain in her like a knife wound, and only increases the pitch of her panic. 

But this is the strangest bit: as the fire licks her heels, she feels not heat but deathly cold, like that of a frigid winter temperate Vesuvia has never seen. Her skin numbs with it. Her lungs choke not on the smell of smoke, but of pine, and instead of crackling flame, all she hears is a distant, cruel laugh.

The same as always. 

“No. Nothing new.”

Asra’s expression falls, as though he too had held a hope that this time the nightmare would be different, that there might be more wisdom to be gleaned from the wreckage. He flashes her an unconvincing smile.

“Then you are not ready yet,” he says, quietly. “Whatever the memory is—whatever your subconscious is trying to tell you—you’ll figure it out. I know you want the answers. But your soul knows better than to give them to you before you are prepared for them.”

It is a variation on a theme: the same thing he always says.  _You’ll know one day_ , and  _be patient_ , and  _give it time_. But she does not want to wait—she has waited three years, and in all that time she does not think she has come one step closer to knowing who she was before.

“My ‘ _soul_ ’ is more tight-lipped than even you about my past,” she says, quietly, and her voice carries hints of bitterness and irony both. 

But she knows herself, or whatever ‘self’ she has become since the she woke from the blackness. Asra has taught her this awareness. If she is lashing out at him—and she is, even if her assault is far less barbed than it could be—it is only because she is uncomfortable. Because she is frightened.

Aredhel sighs, squeezes Asra’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she says, though he does not look offended; his purple eyes watch her without judgement. “I just—I am afraid that the dream is trying to tell me something. Something important. Like, something or…  _someone_ , is waiting for me. Needs me. And if I don’t figure it out in time, something really bad could happen.”

The sheets shift as Asra pulls free of them, raising himself into a sitting position so he can reach out for her. He places a hand on each side of her face and turns it towards him, and his eyes are warm, and kinder than she probably deserves.

“I won’t let anything happen to you, Aredhel. Whatever it is—whatever the dream means—we’ll figure it out together, okay? And until then, I will keep you safe.”

As he always has. Since she woke, wordless. Since the blackness.

But this, she thinks, is something that not even Asra (powerful as he is) can protect her from. Maybe it’s still the anxiety of the dream, a low rumble of distant thunder, paranoia, but she can feel something barreling towards her. Something that whispers,  _change_. She is not yet a good enough magician to know what sort of change it will be. 

The allure of this forgotten thing (one thing, singular, among all the things she has lost; a chief loss) tantalizes and terrifies her: it is an absence that aches, a memory of something sweet. And this, she knows, is the real danger. It is not the fire that licks her heels, but the desperate (and reckless) pursuit of a thing she cannot name—cannot even begin to describe. 

And how is she to explain to Asra—gentle and generous Asra, who has done nothing but provide for her, educate her, defend her—that she would throw away all she has achieved, risking madness and sickness (and even death) for the sake of a nameless ghost?


End file.
